10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy

10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy

Psychology

The psychologist Irene López Assor gives us the keys to break down the barriers that interfere with your well-being

10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy

Perhaps you do not understand the reason for that feeling, you do not find a reason for it or it even seems to you that you have everything to be happy: a good job, friends, a family that loves you, etc., and yet something is wrong. That is what often leads us to say “I feel empty” without a specific reason because apparently everything is fine.

The need to know what prevents us from moving forward and completing our happiness is what led to the psychologist Irene López Assor to write “10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy.” In this book, the author points out ten impediments, the characteristics they have, why they arise and what the consequences are for our lives. With your help, we will discover why we act in one way or another, we will learn to identify our own obstacles and we will know all the necessary tools to overcome them by yourself. Although defeating them and thereby achieving a full life depends on each one …

«That feeling of feeling empty is given because we are dissatisfied children and many times we follow a childlike pattern. If we are adults with our needs met, why do we insist on not feeling satisfied with it? We tend to have a concept of continuous lack that does not allow us to advance », explains the psychologist.

Less expectations, more reality

It should be noted, ahead of the obstacles that Irene López Assor has identified, that the first reason why happiness is not achieved is because our expectations are too high: «If we have too high expectations we will fall into frustration. The higher the goals, the more possibilities we have to procrastinate them, “says the expert. That is why it will always be better to “have zero expectations”, doing things for one goal: “If later we take more than we expected, then great.”

The author of “10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy” warns of the importance of not instilling in the “you can do everything and more” because, as she explains, “not everyone can do everything.” “You cannot create expectations when they are not real. If, for example, I tell someone with depression that tomorrow they are going to wake up great and have a positive day, I am lying to them and creating false expectations. Ideally, everyone should do what suits their skills and abilities.

10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy

How does your relationship with your mother affect your current life? What are the consequences of the frustrations you suffered in your childhood? Why do you always fall into procrastination? Irene López Assor points out the following impediments that slow us down from achieving the longed-for happiness.

1. Toxic mother. It is strange to think that our own mother can be an impediment to being happy, but the writer assures that it is more common than we think. «The issue of mothers is one of the main reasons that is discussed in a psychology consultation, especially the type of relationship we have with our mother and the bond we create, since, by analyzing it in depth, we discover how it will affect or how it is affecting our social relationships, both as a couple and as friends, “he says.

The author of “10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy” defines the toxic mother as the one who “has a negative view of the world.” They tend to be very destructive mothers, very victimizers, possessive and controlling most of the time. “What must be clear is that the attitude of parents towards their children will be decisive when the child correctly develops his personality,” he says.

2. Frustration. People with a low tolerance for frustration are very tedious, emotionally disabled, and have a marked tendency to be angry all day. Apparently, this begins when they are adults, when they are aware that they have not had a good childhood, and that is where the first frustration.

It will seek to satisfy the needs in an immediate way. When this person has to face waiting for something or something has to be put off involuntarily, attacks of anger or sadness are explosively activated.

«If you don’t have a good tolerance to frustration, it is normal for him to do, even unconsciously, emotional blackmail. That is, when they feel that an objective is not being met immediately, that person will begin to manipulate with messages to other people, messages that can be hurtful, focused on criticism, to weaken the other and achieve the objective “, Irene López Assor alert.

These would be some of the tools to feel less frustrated:

– Don’t get carried away by intense emotions

– Take a moment to pause.

– Feel the freedom of your decision making.

– Control your impulses.

3. Autoexigencia.

4. Ego and pride. The ego, in the words of Irene López Assor, is a mixture of a pride misbehaved and an exacerbated ego. «In today’s world, there is an excess of gaze fixed on oneself and, therefore, what happens is that we do not recognize the other and by not recognizing the other we are going to blur. In the end, we lose the north, we fall into the ego trap, of “I am the important thing”, “Only I am right”, “Only my thought is valid”, and this concatenates with the difficulty of connecting with the other and , therefore, to connect with oneself », he warns.

5. Toxic friendship. A toxic friendship can do us a lot of damage and we must not only know how to identify them, but also know how not to share our joys with them because they will not be able to be happy for us. These types of people remind you of your mistakes, they are only there when they need something from you, there is no reciprocity and they make you feel worse than you already are, among others.

6. Disaffection. Who has not been through a breakup? When you are in this grief you go through different stages until: grief, vital disorientation, giving time to the process, drama and victimhood and finally acceptance. “This pain of the breakup has an expiration time and it will depend on each story, but it is described by the mental health community that the maximum time of mourning is one year”, says the expert.

7. Envy. This issue must be approached from two perspectives: who generates envy and who suffers from the rest: “One generates envy but also produces it. It is necessary to try that this envy that we generate does not harm us and we do not enter into that game because it will intoxicate us “, says Irene López Assor. On the other hand, there is the envy of greed, where the source of happiness for many is the evil of others: “These types of people are blurred because they do not have their own goals, they are only other people’s.”

8. Guilt. The psychologist differentiates between two types of guilt: emotional debt and that which does not allow us to be happy because we do not forgive ourselves: «In the first one I feel guilty because another person has done something good for me and I generate emotional debt, where I do not enjoy I don’t enjoy my success, I don’t expand… ». The other fault. It seems to be, is that of repentance for something that can no longer be changed: «It would be the guilt that a mother feels because her son in adolescence is very rebellious, and doubts arise as to whether he has been educated well, if he has been good mother in her childhood …

«It would be advisable to take into account in these cases the self pity because it is a balm that nothing negative that takes us away from guilt. You have to love yourself a little more and be more flexible with yourself, “he advises.

9. Pygmalion effect. It refers to the potential influence that one person’s belief has on another. If someone is constantly encouraging us with a “you can”, “you do great”, “you are the best at your thing” or, conversely, if they tell us “this is too much for you”, “you are not going to get it” …

10. procrastination. Do you know the famous “do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today”? It is another of the impediments to being happy.

Now is the time to stop and think and answer the following question: How many of these difficulties hold me back from achieving the happiness I seek?

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